Miners switch back and forth between BTC and BCC as difficulty adjusts

Ever since Bitcoin Cash (BCC) split from the Bitcoin blockchain, miners have been faced with a decision: which chain to mine?

There are two factors that miners consider: ideology and profitability. But while some miners may be choosing Bitcoin or BCC based on their preferences, some are following the money.

How do we know this? Just yesterday, at block 481,824, the Bitcoin Cash blockchain saw a significant difficulty adjustment.

At that time, the block generation speed of the BCC blockchain was about 1-2 minutes or even shorter. As a result, the mining difficulty increased by 300%, which is the maximum limit of the difficulty adjustment rule.

Both Bitcoin and BCC adjust the difficulty every 2016 blocks, but for BCC, the time required for difficulty adjustment depends on the time required to discover blocks. If the time required for the first 2016 blocks to be produced is less than 2 weeks, the difficulty will be adjusted upward, and if it is more than two weeks, the difficulty will be adjusted downward.

This dynamic change between the two chains has resulted in BCC currently being less profitable to mine than Bitcoin due to its unique difficulty adjustment rules.

Miners appear to be responding, as a lot of hashrate appears to have left BCC and moved to Bitcoin. At its peak, BCC had 44% of the hashrate, while Bitcoin had 56%.

As of press time, according to fork.lol data, BCC's computing power share is approximately 26%, while Bitcoin is approximately 74%.

As of press time, Bitcoin has produced just under 6 blocks per hour over the past 8 hours, while BCC has produced just over 1 block per hour over the same period.

The next difficulty adjustment is expected to occur on August 24 at Bitcoin block 481,824.